


Shallowness with Depth

by Ononymous



Series: Christmas 2018 Stories and Requests [5]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 23:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17212670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ononymous/pseuds/Ononymous
Summary: Mettaton decides he needs a little help decorating his hotel, so calls the Captain of the Royal Guard for a little extra muscle.





	Shallowness with Depth

**Author's Note:**

> Original Request: Undyne helping MTT decorate his hotel for the holidays and warming up to him.

The foyer of the building was spotless, save for a dalmatian who was busy checking into her room. The tasteful marble statue of the one who owned it, splattered with garish colours in an unintended tribute to historical accuracy, struck a dominant pose before the pond and fountain, appreciating the thorough cleaning it had just received. A cat drifted in and out of consciousness, hands twitching like they still had the mob they'd been using all night, while two of his smaller workmates tried to drag him to the staffroom. And then the statue was gazing down at its twin, even more attention-grabbing than his simulacrum. The whispered whirring of servos and motors being only background noise, his mechanical hand threatened to gouge a scar at the rim of the pond.

"Not a speck of dust, everyone! Fabulous work. As a reward, you can all take some time off."

"Thanks, sir!" adulated the receptionist.

"You're very welcome, darling." His charming smile made her feel everything was fine. "Did you enjoy it? Okay, back to work!"

"Yes, sir."

Mettaton didn't have time to watch the grunts scurrying back to their positions. The electronic chiming of this theme music told him the front door had opened again, and as he anticipated, two blue scaley arms were wrestling with a bundle of green.

"Ah, my dear captain. How wonderful for you to help my hotel get into the season's spirit properly!"

"Ngh! Wasn't. Ngh! Like. Ngh! I. Ngh! Had. Ngh! A. Ngh! Choice. Ngah!" grunted Undyne.

"Well no, not with this."

From the camouflage of his pink chest, a pink phone emerged. Mettaton quickly jabbed a few buttons, and a declaration started to play.

"I, Undyne, formerly. CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD! think that doctor alphys' taste. In human entertain. Ment. Is awful. AND THAT THE BETTER. show. Is Mew Mew Kissy Cutie! Two, darlings! heh."

Undyne was not intimidated by the blackmail. "Aw come on, you tincan, I barely said two words of that. Alphys is way too smart to fall for such a hatchet job!"

"Really? Then why did you agree to help us decorate?"

"Because... NGAH!"

Having finished dragging the bundle of green in, she had walked over to the other end, and with one final deafening grunt of effort, tipped the enormous tree onto its smoothly severed trunk. Knowing it wasn't secure, four blue spears flashed into being, each pinning the tree from a separate cardinal direction, holding it in place while two snappy-dressed froggits crawled in to attach a permanent metal base to stop it toppling over.

"Because lifting heavy stuff is fun!"

"Hmm. I can sort of see the appeal, if you look good doing it. Oh well, time for the next step."

He clapped his hands twice. There was a series of put-put-put noises. A swarm of Mini-tons flew in, each carrying baubles or tinsel or wall fixtures. Half of them began colonising the tree with the mostly pink decorations, while most of the others tended to the bare walls. The one holding the lights took ou a bulb tester and began inspecting the lights, one by one.

"Why all the pink?" asked Undyne. "Doesn't feel like the colour of the season to me."

"It will be when I'm done, Undyne dear."

"You can't just reshape a whole holiday to be all about you and your tastes, Mettaton!"

"Well, not with that attitude."

Plans for Chromatic Revolution laid out on the table, focus returned to the Potemkin Village that was MTT™ Resort. Undyne's enjoyment of the occasion was in sharp decline, owing to how she was now asked to locate all the pine needles her flashy tree planting had deposited.

"Ngh! Thought I was tougher than this. Ngh! Why are these needles so pointy? Ngh! And why the hell can't I grab them properly first time?!"

"Just turn up your optical depth of field, dear, it's way easier to home in on them."

"Is that a crack about my eye, rust-for-brains?!"

"Oh, right, forgot most of you don't have that feature. You ever consider getting your girlfriend to install one of my spare eyes in there?"

"Hell- Ngh! - no, I do things _au natural_!"

Mettaton had a coy look on his face. "Is that so? Well what on earth are you doing with electric lights? That can't be natural."

"That's not what I mean! I mean my own body."

His servos pulled his shoulders into a shrug. "Whatever you need to tell yourself to get through the day. But take it from personal experience, darling: 'Natural' is an entirely arbitrary distinction not worth bothering with."

"Ngh! Yeah, whatever."

Fingers numb from picking up the needles, Undyne was then roped into completing the wall decorations, including a begrudgingly faithful depiction of Santa, even getting the curvature of his horns correct, except he too wore the shocking pink of most of the decorations rather than his traditional red. Undyne wasn't even gonna argue the point. Meanwhile the Mini-tons were rallying around the one with the lights, who had decided to test the bulbs using himself and had gone and short-circuited.

"Oh, Undyne," called Mettaton, after ensuring the victim was carried away on a tiny stretcher, "could you grab something from upstairs?"

"What?"

"That star on the tree just isn't looking right. Not radiant enough for my tastes. I just remembered we have an angel that might look better. Could you grab it? It should be in the closet on the top floor."

It felt like a waste to grab only one thing, but it gave her an excuse to get away from the endless pink. "Sure, sure." She walked over to the elevator and pushed the call button. Only a distant bark answered her.

"Oh fiddlesticks, it's out again," pouted Mettaton.

"Well why don't ya tell the dog to get the hell out of there?"

His pale face grew paler, and his words came as an urgent whisper. "Are you trying to get us in trouble?!"

"Oh. _Oh!_ " Her own eye widened. "Okay, never mind that, sorry. So what should I do?"

"The stairs, dear! Should only be two or three thousand."

For a moment her face was the avatar of skepticism. But then her mouth split into a humongous smile. "About time I got some cardio in!"

The main corridor of each floor had the knack of drawing her eye to it as she steadily ascended. They weren't all pink, to her surprise, but no floor could be described as muted. Shimmering golds and electric blues and neon oranges never let you forget the owner's determination to draw your gaze to anything with his name one it. Always so full of himself.

At long last she reached the top, only lightly winded, to find a surprisingly reserved cream colour scheme. She walked into the closet and soon found the bundle of decoration boxes, grabbing the one labelled "Angel". The elevator button produced another bark, so to prevent divine wrath she took the stairs again. For two floors, before getting bored and freeform abseiled down the back of the building instead, where nobody would freak out. When she came through the front doors again, feeling the utter pinkness of the room as oppressive, Mettaton wasn't even surprised.

"The very box, darling, thank you! I think I shall bestow the piece de la resistance myself, if I may."

He took the box from her unprotesting hands before they could start protesting, opened it and grabbed its contents. Without adjusting the rest of his body, his arms telescoped up towards the ceiling, placing the figurine at the very top. It was the first time Undyne had gotten a proper look at it. It mostly looked like a human female, though with unusually large eyes, and she was wearing a blue and white school uniform sporting a midriff. Her wings were made of transparent plastic with glitter, and Undyne couldn't shake the feeling she'd seen a much more elegant interpretation of the same elsewhere. The angel stood out among all the glittery pink of the foyer, and yet she couldn't have said it clashed.

"Hey Mettaton, where'd you get that?"

"Oh," he said off-handedly, "the good doctor made it for me once, when I first joined her club. Well it didn't look like any human I'd seen in the Garbage but... I appreciated the gesture."

"Huh." She lightly elbowed him in jest. "Never took you as one to take sentiment over aesthetics."

"Oh, I'm more than just a shallow celebrity, dear captain," he said with all the modesty in the universe. "It's a better image anyway."

"Suuure it is," she teased. "Welp, I gotta go help the 'good doctor' with our own decorations. See ya-"

"One more thing, Undyne. I got you something as a thank you for your help today." He gracefully presented a tiny box. "It's a new eyepatch. That old one looks so worn out."

"Oh. Uh," she unwrapped the non-surprise uncertainly. "I wasn't expecting that."

And she wasn't. Her prediction was more pink, but the new patch was jet black. No glitter or splashes of colour or Mettatonian imagery, just a simple black eyepatch."

"Yes, not everyone can rock the complex colour theory I insist upon myself. For some, we must rely on the basics. Maybe if you got a haircut at MTT™ Shears we could toy with something more complex, but you'd probably try to stab my hairdressers."

She was frankly taken aback by the unexpected thoughtfulness, and felt compelled to swap her old patch out for the gift. "Well, thanks, Chrome-Boy! Maybe see you over the holidays."

"I'm making sure of that," he cheered, "I got tickets for my New Year's Eve show for Alphys."

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!


End file.
